


No Good Deed

by grayimperia



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-20 00:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12421533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayimperia/pseuds/grayimperia
Summary: [Major V3 Spoilers]Ouma moves his pen across his whiteboard and contemplates each hand around his throat, slap against his face, yank of his arm, attempt on his life, and tsks his tongue at just how much the pawns have turned against their king.But, he thinks, if he can't feel the pain, then he must not be hurt.-Ouma faces his sacrifices.





	No Good Deed

**Author's Note:**

> Major V3 spoilers

Just because there’s smoke, doesn’t mean there’s a fire.

Just because his memories are bright and vibrant and so full of life, doesn’t mean a single shred of them are real. Apparently the motive videos for the others were mixed up, and someone else was supposed to receive a video of himself standing framed by actors or figments or whatever delusions his supposed chosen family is.

Ouma tosses the video onto his bed where it bounces once on his tightly tucked blankets, and he’s tired enough that he throws himself down on his stomach next to it. It’s not much of a chosen family if someone else picked it out for him. But then again, he’s not much of a person if every part of him from the tips of his dyed hair to his odd purple shoes is a lie.

He holds his hands out in front of him. His fingers are thin and pale like bones, and it’s so easy to imagine them covered in bright, vibrant blood, life soaking down his pure white sleeves. It’s easy to imagine because he assumes someone did—someone made his clothes and his personality, and he is a stranger simply inhabiting his own life.

He could close his eyes and will the blood away, but Ouma knows that’s not what the future holds. And Ouma refuses to look away from the lies.

Whoever dreamed him up wanted someone cruel and wicked and easy to manipulate. Ouma flips himself over to stare at his ceiling, kicking his legs absently and feeling his hair fall away from his forehead when he lets his head loll off the edge of his bed. Whoever dreamed him up will have to be satisfied with two out of three.

-

Amami didn’t trust a thought in his head and found it bashed in for his troubles. Ouma stares at his corpse, fake tears streaming down his face and the pieces of his murder coming together quickly in his blurred vision.

Whoever made Ouma made him too smart. He sees the truth and the lies laid out side by side too fast, and he has to skip away to pretend he never saw anything at all. Being upfront is an invitation to join Amami in whatever awaits someone who never existed in the first place.

He remembered Amami had shied away from nothing about his barely lived life.

He remembers dancing around Amami, badgering him with endless questions and receiving an airy laugh in response. “Ouma-kun,” he had said, “I’m flattered you find me so interesting, but I’m afraid there’s not much I can tell you.”

“Aww, why not?” Ouma asked, tapping a finger to his chin. “Is it because you’re brainless?”

Amami laughed again. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. Strange,” an odd look crossed over his face, “I feel like I’m the kind of person who thinks too much about things, and yet here I am.” Another laugh. “Ah, sorry—I keep saying weird things.”

Ouma giggled in response. “I like it! You’re really funny, Amami-chan! I really, ooh,” he rocks on his heels, “I really like the way you say everyone will hate you if you can’t remember stuff.”

Amami quirked an eyebrow. “Do you now?”

“Yup! And,” he puffed out his cheeks and stood on his tiptoes. “If you can’t tell me what I want to know, then I will really hate you, you big meanie!”

“Then I’ll try to answer,” he said, smiling patiently because in their short time together, Ouma’s realized a dozen times over that that’s just what Amami does. “Can’t promise you won’t hate me, though, since I am, ah, brainless, was it?”

“Not a single thought in your head!” Ouma said. “So, Amami-chan, real question and no joke answers, please and thank you—are you… a dirty filthy liar?”

“Ah,” he said, and his smile is sad enough that he doesn’t have to say another word to answer Ouma’s question. “I’m impressed, Ouma-kun,” he laughed. “You really know how to cut right to the heart of things… but I’m afraid I’m still looking for the answer to that question, too.”

Ouma started to sniffle. “S-So you won’t tell me then—I guess I have no choice but to hate my beloved Amami-chan now…”

And Amami smiled back. “I’m sorry—I’ll try to do better next time.”

Whoever made Ouma made him too clever. He sees through people as if they were glass, and when Amami was alive he saw someone too confused and too eager to protect and with just too much information to live.

They’re still finishing up the investigation when the time limit ticks to nothing. Ouma busies himself in the school’s entrance hall, staring at the ceiling and spinning in circles, and he knows he has the luxury to do so because Amami said aloud that he’d end the game.

Ouma makes himself dizzy enough to see spots the size of shotputs raining down on him. Amami told everyone he’d be the hero and put a stop to everything.

Ouma thinks that Amami really was brainless.

-

But Amami and Kaede’s lesson is lost on some. Momota slams his fists together and announces he’ll stop the killing game for sure this time. His declarations are just as hollow as the ones that came before, and Ouma is dutifully scolded when he dutifully points out that truth.

His real lie is how much he lies and just how much the others prefer his lies. It’s only when he toes too close to the truth that he’s called a villain.

He says to Gonta, “If you keep being that gullible, you’re going to get yourself killed.” The future already shines off of Gonta’s glasses, and the only question Ouma has is just who the puppet master will be that draws him to his death. Perhaps a warning will change his fate, but the others say not to listen to a word someone like Ouma has to say.

Momota walks right up to him, jabbing a finger between his eyes. “Don’t say stupid shit like that—what the hell is wrong with you!?”

Ouma looks up at him. Momota seems like a good hero to rally around—he’s sure he’ll fill the Kaede sized hole in the group with more false hope and half-baked plans that she could have dreamed of.

And if that’s the story, then Ouma will play his character. He says, “Me? I’m just looking out for Gonta! You know, because I care about him so much, and I don’t like to lie to people I care about…”

Momota’s eyes narrow. “So you fucking threaten them instead?”

Ouma smiles the same way Amami did when he was alive—patient and pitying and so convinced the person before him will never understand. “Momota-chan, you do know where we are, right?”

“Where we are doesn’t matter!” Momota announces. “All that matters is that we work together and refuse to play Monokuma’s game. If we can’t even try to do that, then we’d just be fucking insulting everyone who died.”

He receives a standing ovation, and Ouma fades into the shadows, this chapter complete.

-

This is a game. And he is a player and everyone else is a pawn. He is a king and everyone else is barely a person.

If there are no people, there is no one to befriend and reject and kill. Only pawns and only losses and gains that tick through his head like the numbers they are.

This is a game and when Ouma says he's going to win, Momota slams his fist into the side of his face. He doesn't know if he can hold it against him—it’s what a hero like him is programmed to do, after all. Ouma moves his pen across his whiteboard and contemplates each hand around his throat, slap against his face, yank of his arm, attempt on his life, and tsks his tongue at just how much the pawns have turned against their king.

Momota punched Saihara once and apologized with friendship. Ouma presses an ice pack from the kitchen against his bruise and thinks just how funny that is.

But he doesn't feel sorry for himself. He feels along the side of his frozen face and doesn't feel anything at all.

If you can't feel the pain, then you must not be hurt.

-

Ouma feels more sorry for Gonta than anything else.

Iruma lays a trap for him, and the game twists into a maze with a hammer and a happy ending waiting at the end. He can’t die yet—that’s not the way this story ends. Ouma sits at his desk and spins the keycard around in his fingers. He wants to live too much, plain and simple, and for that to happen, someone else has to suffer. That’s just the nature of his existence.

Ouma snaps up the keycard in one hand. Playing games with Iruma-chan isn’t any fun, anyway.

Gonta looks at him in absolute horror after Ouma shows him his trump card. “Don’t you think,” Ouma says, “that this is for the best?”

Gonta sobs and nods along and sobs again because his heart is too big and Iruma’s is too explosive and it’s the end of both of them. Ouma likes Gonta. Gonta wants to protect everyone, too, in his own simple way, even if it means his destruction, and Ouma briefly entertains the thought that maybe they aren’t that different. Gonta wants Ouma to have friends and to be a good person and to have everything he was never meant to.

He’s still crying as they exit the forest, Ouma leading the way with a skip in his step. Ouma likes Gonta. But he likes being alive more, and an attempt on his life is his prize for taking everyone by the hand through the class trials. Maybe he got a little too close to being as brainless as Amami.

Gonta wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve as Ouma prattles off a lie the others choose to believe this time. But this is the only way Ouma sees out of this, and destiny is just too inescapable for him.

And he had thought he was so clever for so long, too.

-

He likes Saihara. Saihara could be the mastermind. He likes Saihara too much.

Ouma lays hints for him because it’s someone else’s place to play hero, and it makes him smile a bit too much when Saihara assume the role far more than he was ever meant to.

But there’s still a logic to it.

There are heroes and villains, and a hero is still a hero even if they do something unforgivable. Kaede is someone who had evilness forced upon her. Shinguji is someone who was evil to begin with. They mourn her and don’t bat at eye at him. It’s logical. Black and white. Hope and despair.

Ouma kills Gonta. Ouma was designed to be evil. Saihara calls him evil. It’s just the truth.

He stills smells something sick burning in his room that night as he pulls a blanket over his head and watches his motive video over and over again, wondering if enough views will actually make his heart want to kill.

Everything in it is a lie. Gonta was a lie. Any affection he feels towards Saihara is a lie.

Gonta asked him to make friends, and Saihara pointed out the truth that he’s not meant to have any.

The people in his video aren’t his friends. Ouma flicks it off. With ice cold eyes, his every action comes back into focus. He lays hints because he’s selfish enough to think of how badly he wants Saihara to understand him above the mysteries imprisoning them.

Ouma hops off his bed. He doesn’t plan to kill anymore bugs, but he doesn’t plan to pretend he isn’t anything but heartless either.

Whoever made him wanted someone wicked, and Ouma wants to give them everything they ever wanted.

-

Death and misery lie heavily enough around the school to choke out almost any light.

With Gonta’s death, Ouma almost succeed in doing just that. If the villain wins, the game sinks into despair and the killing stops.

The way Momota stands before everyone with grand promises and endless encouragement is almost admirable. But his light is just bright enough to keep the game going, and Ouma steals him away because it’s the only choice he’s left with to protect everyone from themselves.

When Momota wakes up on the bathroom floor, he rubs at his eyes, and curses, and spits blood into Ouma’s face. Ouma blinks Momota’s hatred away and watches almost absently as his entire body shudders. He realizes more absently just how close everyone’s hero is to death.

They spend too much time in the machinery bay, and Momota’s fading too fast to do anything but grunt at his shattered pride when Ouma brings him pain killers along with his dinner one night. He settles across from him, head propped up his hands, and they just watch each other for a moment.

Just because Momota’s a hero doesn’t mean he can save anyone.

But Ouma keeps staring at his haggard face as Momota looks away first. “If you’re waiting for me to say thank you,” he says, “go fuck yourself.”

“Witty as always, Momota-chan,” Ouma presses his hands to his heart. “My poor heart is breaking…”

Momota snorts. “Can’t break what’s not there.”

He smiles. “Aw, Momota-chan, are you trying to be clever for my sake?”

Momota rolls his eyes and mutters to himself, “the hell is wrong with you…”

“Huh?” Ouma says, tilting his head. “That’s a silly question—you just answered it yourself a few seconds ago!” He brings a finger to his lips. “And I am the mastermind after all.”

Momota eyes him carefully as he leans back against the wall. “So, mastermind,” he says. “Question for you,” he picks up the bottle of painkillers and chucks it at Ouma’s feet. “You destroy the world and force us all to kill each other, but try to make me fucking comfortable after kidnapping me. Wanna explain any of that crap?”

Ouma’s eyes flicker down to the bottle as Momota levies another question at him, “Also what the hell is with this buddy-buddy shit? What—you lonely?”

“Well,” Ouma picks up the bottle and spins it around in his fingers. “The world is destroyed… so maybe I just feel like spending some quality time with one of the last few survivors of humanity—that’s all!”

“And then you’re gonna kill me?” Momota asks. “That how this ends?”

“How rude,” he clicks his tongue. “I believe what you meant to say, Momota-chan, was ‘thank you for spending time with me even though I’m a big dumb idiot who can’t do anything right.’”

Perhaps time has worn away Ouma’s mask or sitting alone for hours with nothing but his thoughts has honed Momota’s observation skills, but he simply looks at him as if Ouma’s the pathetic one between them. “That’s not an answer.”

“Then I guess you’re asking the wrong questions,” Ouma says with a shrug as he stands. “Maybe one day you’ll actually understand anything about anything.”

“I understand that you’re still hiding crap,” Momota answers. “You know, if you are the mastermind, you’re really fucking shitty at it.”

Ouma looks down at him blankly for a moment. Then he makes a decision. Then he smiles. “Well, Momota-chan, I guess I can tell you one thing,” his face twists into something cruel as he moves to loom over him. “I am the mastermind, and the only reason I haven’t killed everyone is because it’d be too boring—it’s way more fun to watch you all suffer and squirm like rats.”

Momota looks up at him, clenching his jaw and falling for one last lie. Ouma says, “When the others come, why don’t you make sure we’re all agreed? Tell them exactly how evil and heartless I am and the real reason I ended this game. Think you can do that, hero?”

He doesn’t wait for a response, and spins on his heel, making sure to crush the pill bottle under his foot on his way out. The plastic snaps under him and the tiny red pills grind into the floor, and Ouma wonders why he even bothered with it in the first place.

-

Then

Then he feels nothing but pain.

Maybe Momota didn’t fall for his lies enough or fell too much again and again. The press comes closer and closer.

He is the villain. This is how his story ends.

Ouma doesn’t think about how he had wanted to live so badly before. He doesn’t think about anything as his eyes shudder close and the press keeps moving towards him. Momota’s cursing up a storm about something. About himself or maybe Ouma or maybe both of them and everything between them.

Ouma looks at him through bleary eyes and sees blood dripping from the corners of his mouth. But even as his thoughts turn to mush, Ouma registers somewhere that the blood doesn’t belong to Momota Kaito, Ultimate Astronaut, but a sick child that was killed before the game even started. And now Ouma’s managed to kill his body’s new owner.

Iruma, Gonta, Momota. Gonta wanted him to make friends. Iruma wanted him to die. Momota wanted him to tell the truth.

He looks up again as Momota moves away to lower the press in reality instead of just in Ouma’s swimming vision. Iruma, Gonta, Momota. They each got what they wanted. Whoever made him got what they wanted.

Ouma thinks that at the very least he managed to spit in the mastermind’s face, so maybe he got what he wanted, too.

There is pain, and then there is nothing.

 

 

-  

 

 

_The camera clicks on overhead._

_He looks up, and his voice shakes as he says, “M-My name is, um—I mean—I’m O-Ouma Kokichi. I, well,” static crackles and he bites his lip as he feels sweat beading up on his forehead and on the back of his neck. “I really want to be on DanganRonpa to be, um, to be someone who can really j-just, uh, make everyone smile. L-Like someone who could bring everyone together! Ah, but,” his volume makes him too nervous, and his next words are spoken to his shoes. “I-I… I’d be happy with just being a comic relief character or something—I mean, if I could just make the audience laugh, well,” he smiles back up at the camera, caught up in his own fleeting fantasy, “I just… I think that’d be enough._

_“I think… I think that would be really special.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I've written an Ouma analysis fic before, but I just found I had more to say about him and ended up writing this fic! Also if you're really into something, you tend to kind of see it in everything, and I may have been listening to the soundtrack of a certain musical a bit too much, haha.


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